bill's overdue

Do we need some tragi-comic relief?

Well, maybe a trip down memory lane to January 31st of this year, when semi-anonymous bill left the nuggets quoted below, along with some other stuff about how he bought a place by borrowing the down payment from his parents, and it will only go up, and he will never lose his job, and the economy is solid, and other stuff like that. He promised to come back in the summer, and he only has 19 days left to do so.

I've got a crow on the barbie for him, and he is overdue. The crow is pretty well smoked too.

Anonymous said...
Anyways, enough of my ramblings. I will leave you boys alone to discuss *when* the market will crash, as you all have been for the past few years. Must be like waiting for paint to dry, eh?

1/31/2008 12:02 AM
Anonymous said...
PS: Please remember my posts. Really. Please do. My name's Bill. I will check back in the summertime, when things get *ugly*, as you say. Haha. In the meantime, keep posting, keep the ideas flowing, and never forget - there's two sides to every coin.

I have not forgotten your posts Bill. What a sexist! In assuming that we are all "boys" here, you excluded mk-kids, and a lot of other women. Good luck with the girls, you swinging bachelor, you.

Oh, and Bill, the paint is peeling off the facade.

Heads I win, tails you lose.

"W" is for Winner (or wiener).

broaken dreems

I heard a piece on CBC Radio today about Brian Howell, who has been taking photographs of abandoned houses in Surrey. At first, I was wondering at why there were abandoned houses in Surrey; is it really that bad in there? Has the market really melted down, and it just escaped my attention? Upon reading the article (linked above), I realized that it was old (1950s, and '60s, and '70s) houses - on large lots that were being subdivided to build a bunch of small houses.

It is poignant to look at the photographs though - at one time, these were brand-new houses that people were proud to build and own. 50 years of Christmases, Hanukkahs, Easters, Diwalis, whatevers, birthday parties, first kisses and gropes in dark basements, fights, divorces, deaths, births, grandparents and kittens. Good grief, I'm getting maudlin and overly sentimental...

Really though, it's just about densification -

The population of Surrey is approaching 420,000. The city gains 1,000 to 1,500 new residents each month. Within 20 years, Surrey's population will be greater than Vancouver's.,

and houses are not (yet) being abandoned by distressed RE debtors.

That comes later.

our kittinger moment

On 16 August 1960, Joe Kittinger jumped from a balloon into the stratosphere (102,800 ft.) to make the longest skydive from the highest altitude in history. He reached a peak velocity of 614 mph (988 km/h), a mark that still stands as the fastest speed ever reached by a human without a vehicle. Though Kittinger fell short of supersonic speeds, he did get pretty close.

Automatic camera recording Kittinger as he leapt from the Excelsior balloon

I see this as analogous to the RE market that we have. It is stratospheric, and record-breaking. It is very cold and lonely up here, and there is only one way down - free-fall, and hope that the parachute works.

Despite the planning of NASA, USAF, etc., no one knew just how it would go. Kittenger's pressure suit sprang a leak, and he suffered intense pain in his hand. Between 90,000 feet and 70,000 feet, Kittenger had great difficulty in breathing. Jayzus, 614 MPH straight down.

Here is the formula that describes his acceleration:

where

v = terminal velocity
v/0 = initial velocity, which is zero in this case
a = acceleration, due to gravity in this case
Deltax = change in distance, 12,800 ft (3,900 m) in this case

I wanted to write a formula that would describe the potential of acceleration once this market starts its free-fall, but my calculus sucks. It will be horrific though, and will likely reach a velocity heretofore unheard of.

Canadians owe $100 Billion in unsecured credit card debt, and who knows how many billions in mortgage debt. Our manufacturing sector has imploded, and continues to burn. Job growth in recent years is mostly in the government, and of course, part-time and service industry jobs. Our federal government has no cookies in the cupboard for when things start to get tough in the next year or so. The US (our biggest market) is already in free-fall, with $1 Trillion in unsecured credit card debt, and of course, a 15% decline in property values (nationally - with some markets down ~40%). That $1 Trillion is not so scary - it is 10x what Canadians owe, but they have 10x our population. Per capita, we are in the same boat.

It is a long, long way down from here, and I think that the fall is going to be very swift.

No parachute either.

speaking of spooks

I mentioned in the last post that there are rumoured to be spooks skulking about that Podcast-adrift project. Spooks are believed in by every culture, and pretty much by all, but for the most skeptical. One reason that those UFO pod houses are still there is that the locals believe that you are playing with danger by tearing down haunted houses.

The aboriginal cultures believe that their ancestors' spirits inhabit the land. I worked in the north in silviculture for ten years, and I have seen and heard some strange things, and I would tend to agree with the belief. I recall working in one valley where the anger at the pillage was palpable. I was not unique in noticing it.

The Rogers Mansion (now Romano's Macaroni Bar and Grill) downtown is well known to be haunted. I personally know the painter who encountered the spook, and he did not actually run out as reported in the article. He finished what he was doing. I also did work there, and we always worked at night. One night I was working with a friend when we heard crashing and banging from the kitchen area. We went and investigated, but found nothing. We were the only ones in the building, and we had all of the doors locked. Strange, but true.

I know a guy that used to live in Amityville, New York, and he said that while the movie sensationalized it (no kidding), there was a very strong basis of truth in it.

I have lived in a house with a spook for the last 8 years. Lots of weird stuff goes on, but we have a kind of agreement not to cast her out if she doesn't mess with us. There used to be two of them here, but one has left. I've only seen it out of the corner of my eye, but my mother-in-law, amongst others, has seen it full on. It's creepy, and I don't like it that much, but we still live here. I have a few pictures of it too, but I can't find them before press time.

So what to do if you buy a haunted house? If it's your house now, go ahead and help it on it's way (I have no suggestions on how to do that). Should you disclose the fact that you have spooks when selling a house? Have you ever thought about buying or renting a place, had a creepy feeling, and not followed through? My wife and I were going to rent a place on Semlin Dr. years ago, but when we went to look at it, a woman in a wheelchair answered the door. My wife and I both had a creepy feeling, and then the woman told us not to rent the place. She asked us if we noticed that the address added up to 13, and told us that she had the worst luck since moving there. She had walked into the place, and was now paralyzed from the waist down. Even stranger, about a year later, I was going through a box of discarded photographs behind a photo shop on the west side, and came across the girl in the chair's photographs of her and her friends doing the Can-Can. That was weird.

I know I'm an odd duck, but I also know that I'm not alone. Ever.

Yikes!

Do you have/have you had spooks? What did you do about it?
	That's a bunch of bunk. There is no such thing as ghosts.
	I have/had spooks, and I just accepted it.
	I had my house blessed when I moved in.
	I had to have my house exorcised.
	I had to move. It just freaked me out too much.
	My cat/dog/kid sees things that I can't see.
	I have too-frequent light bulb burn-outs.
	A lot of stuff goes missing in my house - like keys and such.
	solipsist, you really need a vacation, or some shock therapy!
Free polls from Pollhost.com

the puppeteer - manipulating you and me

I came across this story over at coco's blog. It explains that "Developers are the Games’ real winners" (speaking of the 2010 Olympics). Yeah, no shite Shirley. I never had any doubt about that, and it has always pissed me off. Sure, a lot of speculators have been winners too, but they are more of a participating audience than players.

A former developer himself, Premier Gordon Campbell holds the purse strings to an Olympic-size sweepstakes payout.


The 2010 Olympics were still a gleam in Jack Poole's eye when he addressed a roomful of real-estate developers in the spring of 2002. Vancouver had been shortlisted for the Games, but it would be more than a year until the winning city was chosen.

The outcome of the race to win the Games didn't seem to matter to Poole, who headed the 2010 Vancouver Bid Corporation. Western Investor editor Frank O'Brien sat in on the talk and later editorialized that, according to Poole, "the real purpose of the 2010 Olympic bid is to seduce the provincial and federal governments and long-suffering taxpayers into footing a billion-dollar bill to pave the path for future real estate sales."

Indeed this was Poole's opinion. "If the Olympic bid wasn't happening," he told the developers, "we would have to invent something." Long-time developer Poole had it right. The Olympics are about real estate.

(emboldening mine)



It verges on criminality,in my mind, but "we" asked for it - if not begged for it. Now, the average citizen of Vancouver cannot afford to buy the lowliest crack-shack, while these rich bastidges get richer - at our expense.

B.C. premier Gordon Campbell knows well how taxpayers subsidize developers. Campbell was all smiles when he announced that Marathon would be glad to sell the land to the province at a good price. It was still worth three times as much as its value before the city rezoning.

Campbell...boasted that he got the property at a rock-bottom price before others became aware of what the stadium would do to land values. He built a hotel that was completed at about the same time as the stadium.

Twenty years later, Campbell holds the Olympic purse strings, and as Poole pointed out, it's payday for developers.

The whole article is worth reading. It demonstrates what g-damned fools the populace of this fair city are - sucked in to voting for the Olympics without a clue as to who would really pay for them, and who would benefit.


As you may have gathered, sometimes my postings are more about doing the photoshops, than any serious commentary, though this one is about both.

Do a Google image search for "Bob Rennie", and two of my photoshops come in in the top 9. One of them is the first. That makes me laugh. Let's see if this one shows up on a Google search for "Jack Poole, Bob Rennie, Gordon Campbell".

what if?

Back in 2004, my wife and I felt that we had enough of a down payment (better than 35%) to buy into what we thought was an outrageously over-priced market. Problem was, we saw very little that caught our fancy, and what we did look seriously at were all involved with bidding wars. I thought to put an unconditional, full asking offer on a character house that had obvious issues, but my agent suggested not to bother. It went for $150K over.

So what if we had been reckless, and got the place? It needed foundation work, modernized plumbing and wiring, a new heating system and a new roof, not to mention windows and what not. I could have done a lot of the heavy-lifting, but it still would have cost at least $50G's that we did not have. Second mortgage? The first mortgage, including property taxes. would have been $500/month over what we were/are paying in rent. We would have had some tough months even without a 2nd mtge. Doing the work mostly myself would have been a few years' project in itself. Looking back, I'm glad that we didn't, because we would have been buying at our margin, and at the time, I thought that a turn-around was probably imminent. Appreciation was far from my mind.

I guess I was wrong about the appreciation, the place is probably worth $700K now. Maybe more. We missed out on a couple of hundred G's. That sucks. At the same time, we had a kid, and our income has dropped a bit, so we might be a bit uncomfortable now.

There are certainly intangibles to owning, and I wondered what those might practically be. Starting with interest rates: we were approved at 4.2%/5 years. If we had taken a 3 year term and had to renew at today's 5.79% or there abouts, we would be priced out and would have to sell. Mind you, we would walk away with a nice chunk of change, and go travelling for the time it takes for fundamentals to return. I would have gone for 7 years at a slightly higher rate though, and would be sorely tempted to cash out. Ooops. I forgot about li'l solipsist. I guess we would be locked in... But, as of December 07 we would have paid down $18,174.81 in principle, and $30,102.78 in interest. Instead, we have saved over $24K in the difference between rent and own, and we have been making interest instead of paying it, and I always feel better about that. And then there are those pesky repairs and maintenance, and increasing property taxes. But oh, yeah, the paper equity.

Bottom line is, I don't really have any regrets. It was over-priced.

helicopters

Saigon April 1975
Baghdad 2007

All of this hullabaloo about the Canadian $ at historical highs ($1.15 by Hallowe'en...) has had me thinking about helicopters lately.

The last time the dollar was this high, it was Afro's, bell bottoms, platform shoes, wide ties and the BeeGees The pundits crow. (guilty, but I despised disco). Gerald Ford (Republican) was President. The pundits crow. Then I thought, yeah, and the US was bogged down in a war against "insurgents" in Vietnam, and was doing it's damnedest to get out (and did in 1975). And Nixon was later impeached (though not in relation to the Vietnam debacle). To be fair, it was LB Johnson - a Democrat - who started it.

The Vietnam war was initiated on false "intelligence" - related to the US blowing up it's own ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. And it was against the heathen communists that threatened the American way of life. The Can $ was trading at $1.014*. They used helicopters to evacuate Saigon.

Today, the US is bogged down in an unpopular war in Iraq (going after the heathen Al-Qaeda that threaten the American way of life). Another war against "insurgents". Another war initiated on false "intelligence". People are calling for Bush's impeachment. It's Metrosexuals (or is it something else now?), latte frappuccino low-fat bourgeois biscotti, miniature dogs, and scooters. Bush is a Republican. There are also those who say that 9/11 was a false flag operation - just like the Gulf of Tonkin. They will use helicopters to evacuate Baghdad.

Going back to the high before that, we are in 1959 - when the Can $ traded at $1.042*. Wow! The US was bogged down in a Cold War and arms race with China and the USSR. Around this time, Canada bought it's first Sea King helicopters. It was duck tails, straight-leg chinos, The Big Bopper, and some jazz on the fringes. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, was president.

The high before that was in 1952 - when the Can $ traded at $1.021*. The US was in the middle of another war that they could not win in Korea. The Korean War was the first war that the US used helicopters in a meaningful way. There was no culture to speak of - beyond Mom and apple pie. OK, big bands. Whatever. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, won the presidency (though Truman - a Democrat started the war).

Interestingly, the Can $ was high against most other currencies during those periods as well. It has actually fallen a long way since then. Mind you, that data* is going back to early post- WWII, so a lot of the European nations (and Asian nations) were still in tatters, and rebuilding. and heavily in debt to boot.

In conclusion, helicopters and Republicans are good for the Canadian dollar. So are untenable wars embroiling the US.

One last thing about helicopters. Don't they call Ben Bernanke Helicopter Ben?


*Historical Foreign Exchange data from fx.sauder.ubc.ca

Article comparing Vietnam War to Iraq War.

nostalgia

I've always been a nostalgic type, and I have been wistfully looking at historical photo's of Vancouver. I will be posting what I can get my hands on over the next while (since there seems to be nothing happening with real estate right now).

In 1916 there were no cell 'phones, no Internet, no TV, radio was in it's infancy, the population of (metropolitan) Vancouver was 135,000 - those were the "salad days" in Vancouver.

But, we are world class now, we weren't then.

Burrard St. Bridge 1932
Note the lack of development on English Bay.

Burrard St. Bridge now.

bridge historical images link
It looks like a real traffic jam here (1932)... those were the days.


Stanley Park duck pond (around 1916)

Robson Street 1916
Timms photo collection

Robson St. nowadays link

the grab bag

This is the first version of the grab bag. It's a cheap post today - I have to go and deal with my geriatric dog. Today is her last day on earth.

I came across an old copy of The Province from October 4, 2000 that I must have saved for packing dishes or something.

Pierre Trudeau had just died.
9.11 was almost a year into the future.
The weather was 19 degrees C., and sunny.
Lots of hype in the paper about technology and tech. stocks.
The TSE was trading at 10,456.
Dow Jones was at 10,719.
Nasdaq was at 3,455.
Nortel was up$ 0.95 @ $94.05 (and man, were they pumping Nortel as a new paradigm...).
The U.S. $ was at $1.52.

There were not a lot of houses for sale in the classified section. In East Vancouver @ 37th and Nanaimo, you could get a 3 level character view home with 3 bedrooms and two baths for $245k.



Downtown rentals were pretty "reasonable" too -







And that is the grab bag for December 13th, 2006. What a difference 6 years makes on the Wet Coast.

the changing city

This is an interesting documentation of the changing city. The first photo' shows what was there before The Hudson was built, the second after construction.

Is it an improvement?

The first 19 floors have a nice, shaded view of the building across the street. Sweet for a few hundred grand, no?

Before the hudson
after the hudson

Does anyone have any photo's of The Hudson being built? I would be glad to receive them - vanunreal@gmail.com.